Manipulating Facebook

Are you wondering why your posts don’t get enough likes or even views? Friending someone or having them like your page does not guarantee that they will ever see your posts. In fact, the only guarantee is that 96% of fans NEVER go back to a Facebook page after their first engagement. More than that, the average number of people who see your posts in their news feed is only 16%.

It would be impossible for the average person with their hundred or so friends and fifty-ish liked pages to see all of their connections’ posts. This would lead to everyone having to go through thousands of posts daily, and no one, except maybe teenagers, really has that kind of time. Facebook’s answer to this is their algorithm “EdgeRank”. In essence, they are making assumptions about your popularity by giving weight to certain actions such as likes, shares, and any kind of engagement that your friends and fans take.

YOUR answer to EdgeRank is to manipulate that algorithm. The best way to do this is to share posts that entertain and capture your fans’ interests. Your goal is to get on their news feed, and the following steps will help you achieve this.

1. Play Around Play with your fans, and get them interested in what you have to say. Create highly shareable posts that have absolutely NOTHING to do with your business. You will promote your business later, but first you need fans to actually SEE what you have to share. You also want to create a relationship with them before you start pitching them.

Use the 3 Es – Engage, Educate and Empower. Posts that Engage fans are things like funny videos and memes or time-wasters that people can’t help to engage with. When you educate your fans by offering information that helps them learn something, they immediately want to share the news. Empowering your fans by posting content that makes them feel good is a great way to keep a positive association with your brand.

2. Use Images Choose a high quality rectangular image. Its width should be about 400 or 500 pixels. Choose a short title and write it in all caps. Link it with a strong call to action. You can ask a question or their opinion in another call to action. A great tool to use that will ensure your images are the correct size on most popular social platforms is Social Media Image Maker

3. Post Frequently Always keep in mind that the more posts you make, the more often you’ll be seen. Post at least two to five times every day. If you can spend the time, you can even post 10 or more times per day. Remember, most of your fans will only see 16% of your posts, so if you post 10 times daily, some fans will see one or two of those. Make sure to provide 2/3 shared content and 1/3 original content. Shared content can be an article that you think your fans may like or sharing posts that you believe they will enjoy.

4. Congratulations Facebook There are two words that Facebook seems to like a lot; Congratulations and Facebook. Make it a habit to congratulate your new users and mention Facebook in your posts as often as you can.

5. Post Questions People love to share their ideas and opinions about things. Involving your fans in your product decisions is a great way of engaging them . How can you do this? Ask questions! Fill in the blank questions are always entertaining. Post a short sentence and let them provide the missing word!

Photo captions are also a great way to involve fans. Pick an image that will tempt them to participate. Provide a short description inviting fans to write a caption.

6. Action & Tracking

Give yourself 30 days to implement this strategy. Write at least two to five posts everyday using the methods shared above. If you can create more, then go ahead, you will not overwhelm your fans since they will only see a small percentage of your posts anyway. Ask your friends to share, comment and like your posts. Make sure to share your page posts on your own Facebook page. Begin Share Wheels in your groups. If you want to be a part of a group that already shares and comments on your posts, then become a part of the ChicksConnect Saturday Share Wheel! Facebook stats give us all the information we need to know if we what we are doing is having an impact. Track the results of your efforts by checking the stats of your page before you start doing anything. Then, check at least one time every week, but preferably daily. After 30 days, check your stats again, and you will see your engagements go up. This is when you can post content related to your business. Then check your stats again when you change the type of content to see its impact. When you follow a plan to increase your engagement, the results will follow and you will start to see more activity on your page and from your fans. Start today, be consistent and follow your plan daily, and soon you will be manipulating Facebook.

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3 Comments

Such helpful information Danay! Absolutely love engaging posts and especially fun ones like fill in the blank, caption this, and even ones where you ask questions of others. There can be a lot of interesting answers for sure. Haha! Thanks for sharing such tremendous value when it comes to Facebook. 🙂